Garry Shider, the legendary nappy-wearing singer/guitarist from Parliament-Funkadelic has died at the age of 56. Unfortunately he had been battling cancer since the start of the year.
Though not a founding member of either group, after joining Funkadelic in the early 70s he quickly rose within the ranks of both bands to become the musical director of the P-Funk live show. And as anyone who has ever seen the vintage footage of P-Funk live from the 70's knows, that happens to be one of the best live shows of all time. OF ALL TIME. I'm not even joking. Here's Shider in his prime, singing lead vocal on One Nation Under a Groove.
Now, sadly, the classic period frontline vocal/guitar section (Shider and Glen Goins) is gone. At least we still have some great footage and live recordings from the period - you can hear both Shider and Goins on backing vocal duties on this stunning jam of Undisco Kidd from 1976. They screamed, they'd shout, they really did turn that sucker out.
From the opening of the same show, here's Garry singing on "Cosmic Slop". The dude on lead guitar in the huuuge hat is the also-sadly-deceased Eddie Hazel, and the first dude to sing is Fuzzy Haskins (thankfully still alive). This whole show is available to buy on DVD. I've probably mentioned it before, but it really is worth it, the whole soundtrack has been remastered in Dolby surround.
And finally a more recent clip, from whenever it was they did the cash-in second Woodstock festival in the late Nineties. Oh wait, '99. Garry's not featured so heavily in this one, but he's still there rocking. You can tell it's him cos, well, he's wearing a nappy. He became known as "Daiper Man" (to the extent where he sued the drummer from No Doubt for also wearing a nappy on stage). That shows just how fucking cool the guys was.
Garry "Daiper Man" Shider, you will be missed - Funk In Peace!
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